GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO)
(http://www.geckosystems.com/) -- reported today that a major
international consumer electronics retailer has expressed
heightened interest in purchasing, distributing and selling
GeckoSystems' first product, the CareBot™. GeckoSystems is a
dynamic leader in the emerging mobile robotics industry
revolutionizing their development and usage with "Mobile Robot
Solutions for Safety, Security and Service™."
Martin Spencer, President/CEO of GeckoSystems stated, "As all of
us here at GeckoSystems are excited about this development, due to
the nature of the ongoing negotiations I feel it is in the best
interest of all parties involved to withhold the name of this
international firm at this time. The upcoming meetings,
demonstrations, and potential outcome(s) of it is something that
has been in the works since our founding and is now coming to what
looks to be an extraordinarily profitable culmination. I believe
their interest in us is due to the reality that we have a new
consumer product, a complete multitasking personal robot, the
CareBot™. We are now in the world's first in home elder care robot
trials."
This retailer has operations in the US, Canada, and Mexico. They
are a multinational retailer of technology and entertainment
products and services. Their family of companies collectively
generates more than $40 billion in annual revenue. Over 100,000
employees apply their talents to help bring the benefits of their
product and service offerings to retail customers.
The scope of the US consumer market for truly utilitarian, cost
effective personal robots is enormous. In the January 2007 issue of
"Scientific American," Bill Gates, co-founder and chairman of
Microsoft, the world's largest software company, authored "A Robot
in Every Home" with discussions as to why he expects that reality
sooner than later. There are 110+ million homes in the US.
"We project the available market size in dollars for cost
effective, utilitarian, multitasking eldercare personal robots in
2011 to be $74.0B, in 2012 to be $77B, in 2013 to be $80B, in 2014
to be $83.3B, and in 2015 to be $86.6B. With market penetrations of
0.03% in 2011, 0.06% in 2012, 0.22% in 2013, 0.53% in 2014, and
0.81% in 2015, we will anticipate CareBot sales, from this consumer
market segment, only, of $22.0M, $44.0M, $176M, $440.2M, and
$704.3M, respectively. We expect these sales despite -- and perhaps
because of -- the present recession due to pent up demand for
significant cost reduction in eldercare expenses. This augurs well
for our stockholders," opined Spencer.
About GeckoSystems International
Corporation:
Since 1997, GeckoSystems has developed a comprehensive,
coherent, and sufficient suite of hardware and software inventions
to enable a new type of home appliance (a personal robot) the
CareBot™, to be created for the mass consumer marketplace. The
suite of primary inventions includes: GeckoNav™, GeckoChat™ and
GeckoTrak™.
The primary market for their first product, the CareBot, is the
family for use in eldercare, care for the chronically ill, and
childcare. The primary distribution channel for this new home
appliance is the thousands of independent personal computer and
service oriented "big box" retailers in the U.S. The manufacturing
infrastructure for this new product category of mobile service
robots is essentially the same as the personal computer industry.
Several outside contract manufacturers have been identified and
qualified their ability to produce up to 1,000 CareBots per month
within four to six months.
The Company is market driven. At the time of founding, over
twelve years ago, the Company did extensive primary market research
to determine the demographic profile of the early adopters of the
then proposed product line. Subsequent to, and based on that
original market research, they have assembled numerous focus groups
to evaluate the fit of the CareBot personal robot into the
participant's lives and their expected usage. The Company has also
frequently employed the Delphi market research methodology by
contacting and interviewing senior executives, practitioners, and
researchers knowledgeable in the area of elder care. Using this
factual basis of internally performed primary and secondary market
research, and third party research is the statistical substance for
the Company's sales forecasts.
Not surprisingly the scientific statistical analyses applied
revealed that elderly over sixty-five living alone in metropolitan
areas with broadband Internet available and sufficient household
incomes to support the increased costs were identified as those
most likely to adopt initially. Due to the high cost of assisted
living, nursing homes, etc. the payback for a CareBot™ is expected
to be only six to eight months while keeping elderly care receivers
independent, in their own long time homes, and living longer due to
the comfort and safety of more frequent attention from their loved
ones.
The Company's "mobile robot solutions for safety, security and
service™" are appropriate not only for the consumer, but also
professional healthcare, commercial security and defense markets.
Professional healthcare require cost effective, timely errand
running, portable telemedicine, etc. Homeland Security requires
cost effective mobile robots to patrol and monitor public venues
for weapons and WMD detection. Military users desire the
elimination of the "man in the loop" to enable unmanned ground and
air vehicles to not require constant human control and/or
intervention.
Perhaps doing the breakeven analysis for a nursing home or
assisted care facility would be insightful. Let's assume, for the
sake of this illustration, that the CareBot only checks blood
pressure and heart rate for the designated care receivers for 7
days a week, 16 hours per day, or 448 hours per month,
automatically with only intermittent direct human management.
A fully burdened cost of ten dollars ($10.00) an hour would be
slightly over thirty-eight percent (38%) minimum wage pay. This
infers a total minimum cost for a cost benefit of $4,480.00 per
month for 448 hours of utility. So if the CareBotPro™, a larger and
more robust version of the CareBot, sold for as much as $42,500,
the "payback" could be as quick as ten months. Electricity for
recharging would be a few dollars a month and maintenance needs
would be only three to four hours per month for the first two to
three years depending on how much physical distance the mobile
robot has traveled.
The Company's business model is very much like that of an
automobile manufacturer. Due to the final assembly, test, and
shipping being done based on geographic and logistic realities;
strategic business-to-business relationships can range from private
labeling to joint manufacturing and distribution to licensing
only.
Several dozen patent opportunities exist for the Company due to
the many innovative and cost effective breakthroughs embodied not
only in GeckoNav, GeckoChat, and GeckoTrak, but also in additional,
secondary systems that include: GeckoOrient™,
GeckoMotorController™, the GeckoTactileShroud™, the
CompoundedSensorArray™, and the GeckoSPIO™.
The present senior management at GeckoSystems has over
thirty-five years experience in consumer electronics sales and
marketing and product development. Senior managers have been
identified for the areas of manufacturing, marketing, sales, and
finance.
While GeckoSystems has been in the Development Stage, the
Company has accumulated losses to date in excess of six million
dollars. In contrast, the Japanese government has spent one hundred
million dollars in grants (to Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu,
NEC, etc.) over the same time period to develop personal robots for
their eldercare crisis, yet no viable solutions have been
developed.
GeckoSystems is the first mobile robot developer in the world to
begin actual in-home eldercare evaluation trials.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Giver?
The short answer is that it decreases the difficulty and stress
for the caregiver that needs to watch over Grandma, Mom, or other
family members most, if not much, of the time day in and day out
due to concerns about their well being, safety, and security.
But, first let's look at some other labor saving, automatic home
appliances most of us use routinely. For example, needing to do two
or more necessary chores and/or activities at the same time, like
laundering clothes and preparing supper.
The automatic washing machine needs no human intervention after
the dirty clothes are placed in the washer, the laundry powder
poured in, and the desired wash cycle set. Then, this labor saving
appliance runs automatically until the washed clothes are ready to
be placed in another labor saving home appliance, the automatic
clothes dryer. While the clothes are being washed and/or dried, the
caregiver prepares supper using several time saving home appliances
like the microwave oven, "crock" pot, blender, and conventional
stove, with possible convection oven capabilities.
After supper, the dirty pots, pans, and dishes are placed in the
automatic dishwasher to be washed and dried while the family
retires to the den to watch TV, and/or the kids to do homework.
Later, perhaps after the kids have gone to bed, the caregiver may
then have the time to fold, sort, and put up the now freshly
laundered clothes.
So what does a CareBot do for the caregiver? It is a new type of
labor saving, time management automatic home appliance.
For example, the care giver frequently feels time stress when
they need to go shopping for 2 or 3 hours, and are uncomfortable
when they have to be away for more than an hour or so. Time stress
is much worse for the caregiver with a frail elderly parent that
must be reminded to take medications at certain times of the day.
How can the caregiver be away for 3-4 hours when Grandma must take
her prescribed medication every 2 or 3 hours? If the caregiver is
trapped in traffic for an hour or two beyond the 2 or 3 they
expected to be gone, this "time stress" can be very difficult for
the caregiver to moderate.
Not infrequently, the primary caregiver has a 24 hour, 7 days a
week responsibility. After weeks and weeks of this sometimes
tedious, if not onerous routine, how does the caregiver get a "day
off?" To bring in an outsider is expensive (easily $75-125 per day
for just 8 hours) and there is the concern that medication will be
missed or the care receiver have an accident requiring immediate
assistance by the caregiver, or someone they must designate. And
the care receiver may be very resistant to a "stranger" coming in
to her home and "running things."
So what is it worth for a care receiver to have an automatic
system to help take care of Grandma? Just 3 or 4 days a month "off"
on a daylong shopping trip, a visit with friends, or just take in a
movie would cost $225-500 per month. And that scenario assumes that
Grandma is willing to be taken care of by a "stranger" during those
needed and appropriate days off.
So perhaps, an automatic caregiver, a CareBot, might be pretty
handy, and potentially very cost effective from the primary
caregiver's perspective.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Receiver?
It's a new kind of companion that always stays close to them
enabling family and friends to care for them from afar. It tells
them jokes, retells family anecdotes, reminds them to take
medication, reminds them that family is coming over soon (or not at
all), recites Bible verses, plays favorite songs and/or other
music. It alerts them when unexpected visitors, or intruders are
present. It notifies designated caregivers when a potentially
harmful event has occurred, such as a fall, fire in the home, or
simply been not found by the CareBot for too long. It responds to
calls for help and notifies those that the caregiver determined
should be immediately notified when any predetermined adverse event
occurs.
The family can customize the personality of the CareBot. The
voice's cadence can be fast or slow. The intonation can be breathy,
or abrupt. The voice's volume can range from very loud to very
soft. The response phrases from the CareBot for recognized words
and phrases can be colloquial and/or unique to the family's own
heritage. The personality can range from brassy to timid depending
on how the care giver, and others appropriate, chooses it to
be.
Generally, the care receiver is pleased at the prospect of
family being able to drop in for a "virtual visit" using the
onboard webcam and video monitor for at home "video conferencing."
The care receiver may feel much more needed and appreciated when
their far flung family and friends can "look in" on them anywhere
in the world where they can get broadband internet access and
simply chat for a bit.
Why is Grandma really interested in a CareBot? She wants to stay
in her home, or her family's home, as long as she possibly can.
What's that worth? Priceless. Or, an average nursing home is $5,000
per month for an environment that is too often the beginning of a
spiral downward in the care receiver's health. That's probably
$2-3K more per month for them to be placed where they really don't
want to be. Financial payback on a CareBot? Less than a year-
Emotional payback for the family to have this new automatic care
giver? Nearly instantaneous-
Safe Harbor:
Statements regarding financial matters in this press release
other than historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within
the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section
21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is
defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
The Company intends that such statements about the Company's future
expectations, including future revenues and earnings, technology
efficacy and all other forward-looking statements be subject to the
Safe Harbors created thereby. The Company is a development stage
firm that continues to be dependent upon outside capital to sustain
its existence. Since these statements (future operational results
and sales) involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to
change at any time, the Company's actual results may differ
materially from expected results.
Contact: www.GeckoSystems.com or Main number: 1-866-CAREBOT
International: +1 678-413-9236